Eating and Bariatric Surgery: Social Representations of Obese People

Abstract

Food, weight loss practices, and bariatric surgery are themes studied under different conceptions on both the fields of the humanities and health. This study aims to approximate the theory of social representations to the implications of health practices adopted by obese people in view of the socially-imposed beauty standards. To understand the Social Representations of food and bariatric surgery, open-questions interviews about eating habits and bariatric surgery were conducted with 16 obese people aged between 20 and 58 years with mean body mass index of 38.3 kg / m². Data were analyzed by descending hierarchical classification using the IRaMuTeQ program. The results indicate that food has ambiguous social representations, at times related to pleasure and at others to suffering due to the difficulty of control. When obesity sets in, bariatric surgery emerges as the ultimate hope for solving problems; however, along with hope, individuals experience the fear of failure and changes resulting from the surgical intervention.

Keywords:
Social Representations; Eating Disorders; Eating Habits; Weight Loss; Bariatric Surgery